Chapter 37

"All right!" Present Mic exclaimed as everyone was done getting into their formations.

Kazuki's team had been kind of waiting for everyone else, mostly, but they were in position too now. With Togeike as rider so that she could more easily use her Quirk to keep everyone away. He'd had to reassure the Gen Ed student quite a bit, especially considering that everyone was very obviously looking at them. At least Monoma, who was placed to Kazuki's right, and Hatsume, who was at the front, seemed much more at ease… sort of. Hell, the Support student seemed downright excited.

"Everyone better have formed their teams, because we are about to start!" continued their teacher and Kazuki took a deep breath in. Where she sat on his and Monoma's shoulders, Togeike seemed to decide to follow his example. With some luck, it'd help her like it did him. "Let's do it, everyone! Let's start the countdown for this clash!"

And so, the crowd did.

By three, Kazuki traded a look with Monoma and then Togeike. They knew the plan. They'd discussed it and made sure that they all knew how it was going to go. After all, if everyone was going to be gunning for them, that only meant that they could predict what was going to happen as soon as they got started.

And that meant that they could plan for it, which is exactly what they had done.

By two, Kazuki felt the air around his right side start getting colder, especially closer to the ground. Togeike fidgeted with something in her hand, ready for anything at any time. Hatsume… just giggled, vibrating in place. As for Kazuki himself, his shadow started letting out faint wisps.

He couldn't do much else, before the event officially started.

By one, he just wanted things to get started already. He wasn't sure if they were really going by seconds, or if the assholes were intentionally drawing out the time to make them suffer more. Either way, he had to make an herculean effort not to let out a grimm already, and for once it wasn't just his Quirk's influence.

"Start!"

At that very moment, the teams that had before being placed around a rectangle in the field turned to face straight towards Kazuki's team, starting to run immediately. 'Come here, then,' he thought, the head of a King Taijitu peeking out of his shadow now that he was free to make it. Beside him, Monoma shifted his feet, and a grin formed on his face.

"What?!" a boy exclaimed.

"Thought I'd just let you do that, Honenuki?!" Monoma asked, clearly amused.

"You, when did you even get it?!"

Kazuki didn't know what was up there, but he was betting his teammate had taken someone's Quirk or otherwise messed with one to block something. This was further proved when he saw that the ground around them had turned to mud, much like it had when Monoma had been showing them their "extra". So far, Kazuki felt like he'd made a pretty solid choice in teammate there and things had barely gotten started.

He'd half worried that the 1-B student would sabotage them, but maybe he wasn't actually so bad.

Surprisingly, Togeike made the next move taking advantage of the new terrain around them. Her mud "needles" shot out towards an incoming team coming at them from the side. That turned out to be Tetsutetsu's team, where this Honenuki person was too. That was all Kazuki could see before his vision was blocked.

Blocked by what? By his grimm continuing to materialize.

With half the King Taijitu formed, he controlled what was there to swipe over the battlefield in front of them like a whip. The rest of it would take time though and he couldn't afford to wait, even if the giant two-headed serpent would be very useful. No, he needed more grimm and quickly.

'Easy does it, don't rush. You are in control, not the Quirk,' he thought to himself, taking slow breaths as he started forming two Nevermores on the smaller side. He had plenty of emotions to fuel his creations, so being inefficient wasn't a concern. Hell, the crowd was evidently very affected by his display just now, if he was reading things right. 'Let's go,' he thought, pushing any observations he might have made about his sensing of emotions and creating two Beowolves.

It was a risk, going for five grimm when his absolute limit at the moment was six. He was pushing too much, some might say. He imagined Aizawa was facepalming wherever he was with Yamada. Kazuki had to show his best front though.

And that meant power too.

He needed to show everyone that he was in control, but also strong. If he was in control just by crippling himself, would that be better? He didn't think so. No, he needed to show people the things he could do if he were good too.

'I can do this,' he thought, keeping his mind calm, cold and focused. There were his grimm, his objective and his goal. Nothing else mattered. Not the emotions of the crowd, nor the shouts of the other competitors, nor his own fears. 'I can do this,' he repeated, a slight smile forming on his face as his grimm engaged with a few teams that had gotten close.

Togeike continued shooting at everyone she could see. Judging by how the earth around them continued shifting ever so slightly, Kazuki would bet that Monoma was keeping his classmate at bay. Mei didn't have much to do, but he could see her hand twitching and fidgeting with the Capture Gun.

The situation changed when his King Taijitu, who had been keeping them separated from a chunk of the field, started being frozen over. Explosions could be heard coming from the other side too. Looking through the snake's senses… Kazuki confirmed what was obvious.

'And so they come,' he noted to himself… grinning widely.

"You got that?" Monoma asked, his voice slightly strained.

"I do, just be ready for the ground to be frozen over."

"Noted," the boy replied and Kazuki could pick up on the frustration and exhaustion creeping on him already. Apparently, holding back his teammate from turning everything into mud was more complicated than it seemed.

"Oh, I can't wait," Hatsume commented, and he could almost see her holding back maniacal laughter. She was fun like that, it seemed. 'Welp, so long as she doesn't mess things up, we are good,' he mused, turning his full attention towards where his problematic classmates were coming from.

"You got things, Togeike?" he asked, wanting to see if he could pull away his grimm. "I might need to take some of the power away from here to cover this."

"Yeah," the girl breathed out her eyes wide in awe as she looked at her work. "Yeah, I can do this," she added, and Kazuki felt like she might have been talking to herself there instead of him. Especially when she waved her hand harshly to the side and shot a barrage of mud needles towards a very unfortunate team from 1-B. "I definitely got this!" she exclaimed, ecstatic.

'If she's happy then,' Kazuki thought with a grin of his own as he took away some of his grimm to cover his side better. He left a beowolf around just in case though. If he needed it, he'd pull it back, if he didn't, then better leave it where it was. Worse came to worst, he'd make a temporary sixth.

Good thing he did too, because the King Taijitu was falling apart faster than he could repair it with more negativity. If it were only Todoroki or Bakugo, it might have held. But with both of them? And Midoriya too? Hell, those three had teammates that were also tearing into the creature.

It stood no chance, but that was the thing with his grimm. There was always more than one. Before they could completely obliterate his creation, the other ones reached, jumping or flying over the serpent's body. Once over that zone, his Nevermore wasted no time at all before starting to rain feathers on the poor bastards on the other side. They likely wouldn't do much to the students there, but they'd be annoying and he was all for that.

"Not so fast, guys!" Monoma called then, and there was a wave of cold air that came from his side as he created ice from his foot and spread it towards where some students had been getting close. "We might be in the same class, but I want to win too!" the blonde added.

Kazuki could sense him feeling bad for what he was doing, but he evidently could tell that this wasn't the moment to hesitate. This was a showcase just for them. They all needed to show their best side to the world. People probably wouldn't know or care about who was in who's class.

Hell, how could they, when the entirety of the participants were basically the two heroic classes plus three?

So he hoped, at least.

Absently, he noticed Present Mic continuing to comment on the event, but he paid him no mind. He had to keep an eye out for his team and for everything his grimm were picking up on. On top of that, he had to keep his creatures under control, which took a fair bit of focus.

Things were going well though, so-

"They are getting too close!" Togeike called from, making him look towards the front, which was the side she'd been covering. Indeed, there were groups there that were getting closer. One in particular that wasn't one he wanted to deal with.

Apparently, Mineta had teamed up with Asui and Shoji. 'And Mineta will be a fucking nightmare with his beads,' Kazuki thought, holding back a grimace as he made the Beowolf he'd kept around towards that particular warhorse. 'Let's get out of here, yeah. We can't hold on forever.'

"Time to fly. Monoma," Kazuki decided out loud.

"I know, let's go," the blonde replied, and Togeike instantly brought her hand up and pressed the activation button for the Jet Pack. Kazuki guarded himself with Boarbatusk armor while Monoma did so with Todoroki's ice so they didn't get affected by the device. Now that would have sucked majorly, he was sure.

"Fly my baby, fly!" Hatsume squealed as they moved through the air. The thing could certainly fly, especially considering it was bringing them all, as they held onto Togeike's legs. Once they started falling, probably because the girl couldn't quite endure having the weight of three people on her legs while flying like that, they prepared themselves. Hatsume used her Hover Boots to soften her landing, while Kazuki cushioned his and Monoma's fall with a half-grimm forming under them.

"I'm going to run out of time with my Quirk in a bit, Endo," Monoma said, gritting his teeth and feeling frustration wash over him. Kazuki considered that for a moment. He'd let a Beowolf and a Nevermore break apart while they moved away. The rest of his grimm were keeping attention on them and being general nuisances, but it wouldn't take the teams that remained there long to realize that they weren't there anymore, if they hadn't outright seen them move. Good thing the King Taijitu was so big though.

"I'll see what I can get you," Kazuki replied, narrowing his eyes. "Togeike, you have enough to work with over there?" he asked then, because Monoma not having a Quirk would be bad, but if Togeike was out too, then that'd leave Kazuki and Hatsume's gadgets.

"Yeah, a little."

"Help her with that for now, Monoma," Kazuki decided, getting a nod before both of them started shooting people with the mud created by the 1-B student and some of the thawed ice that Monoma and Todoroki had created. With that and his grimm, they should be able to buy some time before recovering with a new Quirk for the 1-B student to use. Now, what and how to get him something though…

"At least Hatsume's and Togeike's Quirks go well together," the blonde commented, making Kazuki blink. Yeah, Zoom and Liquid Thorn probably synergized quite a bit. Especially considering the only source for the latter had been left behind some distance away.

His attention was stolen by something that caught his Nervermore's eye.

"What do we have here?" he asked as the avian creature dove down and clutched something in its feet, between its claws. "... a hand?"

"Tokage," Monoma recognized, somehow. "She can separate and control parts of her body," the boy explained. "Bring that here and be careful. A hand or something could try to get our headband."

Following the advice, Kazuki delivered the limb to Monoma, feeling a little disturbed by that Quirk. It sounded pretty messed up, when one thought about it in depth… So he guessed the key was not to take it that seriously. Once Monoma had touched the hand, he had the Nevermore fly away with it and start raining feathers on people.

"Thanks, Tokage!" the blonde called, getting a rather… less than polite response from the girl whose hand he'd stolen a Quirk from. A moment later, Monoma's right hand flew off. "I'm going to try and get a headband or two like this. With Zoom, I should be able to find an opening if there's one."

"Good luck. It'd be nice to have a back up plan," Kazuki replied.

"Oh, oh! I can make you a baby that works like my Quirk if you want!" Hatsume exclaimed, giving Monoma pause as the blonde blinked.

"I'd like one of those too… if I make it to heroics," Togeike commented idly, but she sure sounded a lot more happy than she ever did at any other time that Kazuki had seen her. Evidently she was quite happy with her performance so far. "Shinso's coming over here. His Quirk is Brainwash, he can mind control anyone that replies to him when he talks."

"Don't take bait from the guy. Got it," Kazuki said, glancing towards the purple-haired boy. He could see how he failed the Entrance Exam with a Quirk like that, honestly. Controlling people didn't help much when you had to fight robots and it would have limited use when trying to get rescue points too. Still, that didn't mean it was impossible though.

His Beowolf back at the King Taijitu zone was blown up by Bakugo at that very moment, it seemed. Not only that, but people had already picked up on the fact that they had moved. So, with that in mind, Kazuki let them dissipate, going to create more that were closer.

Back to Shinso, the purple-haired mind controller, Kazuki sent his Beowolf close by towards him. Would that Quirk work on his creature? If it did, would it overrule his own control of it? Ultimately, he was just curious, because at the end of the day, if he could control them, then he'd just dissipate them and make a new one. He could keep that going forever, after all, so it would be more annoying that bad.

Thus, when the boy talked to the grimm and the grimm roared in response… Nothing happened. 'Good,' Kazuki thought, grinning widely as the boy's team had to face the beowolf. 'Weird that Ojiro's with him though,' he noted with some confusion. The other two were Class 1-B, which he knew less about, but still… 'Did he mind control a team for himself? That's… questionable, I think, but whatever. Maybe that's just from my perspective…'

It didn't matter though. If what the other boy did was good or not didn't matter. That'd be something for the crowd and the school to judge. Kazuki didn't have time to worry about how some other person was going to be perceived by others. He had enough on his plate with just his own situation.

It sucked for Ojiro, but Kazuki didn't have the time to try and help him… Or did he?

"Can that control be broken somehow?"

"Not that I know of,"Togeike answered, to which he grimaced. 'Ok, I'm going to give them a smack and see what happens, I guess. If that doesn't work, they are on their own,' Kazuki decided.

Besides, on a more selfish side of things, if he could snap those three out of it and make them turn on Shinso, that'd be one less team to worry about. That wasn't very heroic of him, but so long as he didn't make things worse for himself, Kazuki would take any advantage he could. Being mind controlled through the Sports Festival couldn't be nice for those boys either, so… that counted as a good deed too, Kazuki was sure.

So, he commanded his beowolf to attack that team. Ojiro wasn't going to do much besides hitting it with his tail and that wouldn't be very effective. Shinso literally couldn't do anything to it either. Kazuki was pretty sure the other two didn't have anything much better than that. At most, they'd keep the grimm at bay for a bit.

"They are getting closer!" Togeike called, and Kazuki's attention snapped back. He'd focused too much on that. In fairness, however, he did have to spend most of his brain power keeping the leash on his grimm. 'Maybe I should tone it down so I can think? There's three other people in this team though, I don't have to do everything…'

"Can you get the guy with brown hair in this Shinso's team?" Monoma asked, making Kazuki blink and glance in that direction again. "His Quirk would be really useful."

"My grimm are kind of busy," Kazuki muttered, keeping his creatures in check as he tried to battle the teams all around. Fortunately, some of them had stopped trying to rush his, but they definitely were still coming. Todoroki seemed to be especially determined, but a new King Taijitu and a Nevermore were keeping that team and a few others away. "I can make one more but I need you guys to keep an eye on things. My focus is stretching really thin right now."

"Do it, we can keep this side of things for now," Monoma urged determinedly.

Immediately, Kazuki closed his eyes and focused on his grimm and created a Beringel. Nothing else mattered. There was just the grimm and controlling them. His body was there, holding his position for the warhorse, but little else. He had to trust his team. They weren't idiots, he knew. At least Togeike didn't seem to be and Monoma was being surprisingly good too.

So, he rushed Shinso's team with his Beringel while the Beowolf kept them busy. That's when the brown haired guy he was targeting breathed out and the Beringel seemingly hit an invisible wall. 'Oh yeah, that would be useful,' Kazuki decided, making the Beowolf rush in in a sort of sacrificial move to take a swipe at the guy, making the warhorse stumble before Ojiro used his tail to stabilize it.

It was too late for the other guy, who was grabbed by the Beringel and then brought to Kazuki's team.

"Thanks, Tsuburaba," Monoma said, a grin on his face as he touched the guy's arm. "Done here, boss."

"I'm not your boss," Kazuki mumbled, throwing the boy off just as his blonde teammate used the new Quirk to hold people back once more. They just needed to hold on for a bit. "How much longer?"

"We are past the twenty minutes mark, boss!" Hatsume answered, making him purse his lips. They were doing it on purpose, weren't they? He wasn't even picking up any bad emotions from them besides some nerves. They had to be joking or something. Assholes.

"Tell me when there's a minute or two, yeah?" he said, keeping the sixth grimm out. He could do this. The Beringel left the Beowolf in charge of the Shinso team to rush towards the King Taijitu area. It'd make a good meat shield to keep Midoriya away from him, at the very least. The giant snake only needed some occasional help so as to not get turned into a frozen piece of negativity. That's what the two Nevermores and one other Beowolf were there for, on top of fighting other teams. Besides, Togeike was still shooting people occasionally with Monoma, who was also shooting out the invisible air things with the Quirk of his classmate.

And that's when everything went to shit, of course.

The first thing to happen was Bakugo appearing out of nowhere in the air, flying with his explosions and apparently having completely ditched his warhorse. 'You absolute madman,' Kazuki thought, trying and failing to have a Nevermore intercept him. Monoma had his back there though, because Bakugo seemed to smash against an invisible wall. That bought just enough time for his bird creature to hit him from the side and send him away.

The next thing that happened was that Todoroki seemed to have decided to go all out, his ice seemingly going full power and freezing the King Taijitu before it could do anything. 'If he could do that though, why didn't he do that sooner?' he wondered, but his answer was given by the eyes of a Nevermore, who saw that Todoroki was half frozen himself, and not in a nice way.

However, there was something else that was going on there, because the boy was using his fire, something that Kazuki knew was rare. He was pushing away the ice on his own body with it, fighting the symptoms of his Quirk overuse. All the while his warhorse moved him past the now frozen grimm.

"Fuck!" Monoma exclaimed then, and Kazuki felt it too. The pain on his hand. The hand that wasn't actually attached to his body. Now that was a strange feeling. Kazuki felt it like it was, but it very obviously wasn't. 'Interesting that,' he thought, even as he grimaced. "They got my hand," the blond explained with a bitter smile.

"3 minutes left, boss!" Hatsume called and Kazuki nodded.

"Buy me a minute or so," he said, getting a nod from all three of them. "We are almost there. I'll get us through. I just need you guys to be ready for some rough emotions to hit you…"

And so, they prepared. Hatsume pulled out the Capture Gun and kept it aimed forward and towards Kazuki's side. Togeike seemed to start shooting even more needles. Monoma followed suit, sending invisible walls everywhere to stop people, especially Bakugo, who was keeping himself going up and down around them and trying to find an opening.

Until the bomber got shot with a net from Hatsume's baby.

"Great job!" Kazuki cheered cheered as he saw the blonde fall to the ground, away from his horse. His team was carrying things, though, and that meant he had a job to do now. Thus, he pushed everything to the side and he let his grimm dissipate, leaving out only three, two Beowolves and one Nevermore. He needed to be hundred percent focused on this, after all.

Reaching inside himself, he pulled on the strings he needed, forming a new grimm as he took deep breaths in and kept his mind clear. Keep the grimm under control, make the new grimm. Nothing else mattered. There was nothing else at all, just those two things.

And so the grimm rose from the ground, slowly, with its ominously glowing eyes and the wisps of darkness flying about. The crowd didn't like it, but they didn't like when he made any grimm so he ignored them. He was here to prove that he could do things. He couldn't just refuse to make grimm because of them, after all.

'Prove yourself… for yourself, not acting as something you are not,' he remembered Inui telling him once. 'Show them the best version of yourself. You can't turn into something else for others, Endo. No matter how much you want to, it won't end well.'

Kazuki hoped those words were as wise as they sounded. He really did, because he might just ruin his chances with his next move. 'I'm going to win this. I'm going to show everyone. No matter what.'

And so, the Apathy opened its mouth… and screamed.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How's it going?

God am I hating these events with so many moving pieces. Thank God the next one is just one on one battles, because this is a nightmare. There's so many people I need to take into account and wonder what they are doing and if it'd be worth mentioning and such.

I could probably have lengthened this by adding PoVs from other characters, show differences and such. However, I didn't want to spend two or three chapters on this and I didn't think there was enough going on to really guarantee that. Maybe people will disagree, but it's what it is.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

As always, if you can't wait until next week for next chapter, or if you just feel like supporting my writing, there's up to three new chapters in my Pa tre on:

P a treon . com (slash) AdrianKing

Discord Link: discord .gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Like I said before, I'll repeat the question. How are you seeing the top three right now?

See you.